


Flowers That Bloom in the Snow

by Decepticonsensual



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 12:31:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First Aid thinks that celebrating an almost-forgotten Cybertronian holiday will be the perfect thing to cheer up the patients (not to mention the staff).  So why is Pharma so opposed to the idea?  And exactly how far is First Aid willing to go for the sake of the holiday spirit?  Contains explicit sticky sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers That Bloom in the Snow

“Nurse.”  Pharma crossed his arms.  His wings were quivering.  That was never a good sign.

First Aid maintained an expression of perfect innocence.  It wasn’t easy, what with the faceplate, but he’d practiced in front of mirrors.  His optics went wide as saucers.  “Yes, Pharma?”

“Would you care to explain the presence of –”  A long, elegant finger stabbed upwards with surgical precision.  “ _– this_ object in my clinic?”

First Aid wouldn’t.  He really wouldn’t.  But Pharma’s voice brooked no opposition.  “Um.”  He touched the tips of his fingers together, and stared at them instead of meeting Pharma’s optics.  “I thought it would be nice.  For the patients.”   _And us,_ he added silently.

“Get rid of it.”  Pharma lowered that aristocratic nose of his back to his datapad, but his wings were still twitching.  “And check the drip on bed eight.”

There was something about the casual dismissiveness of it that rubbed First Aid the wrong way more than Pharma’s earlier anger had.  “Is that really necessary?” he asked quietly.

Pharma looked at him over the edge of the pad, his optics half-lidded.  “Well, unless you want the patient in bed eight to offline due to energon clotting, yes, I would suggest that it is.”

“ _Pharma._ ”  It wasn’t often that First Aid deployed the Determined Nurse to Recalcitrant Doctor Voice (or, at least, not on Pharma; its effect on Ambulon was usually a lot more satisfying).  “You’re not the only one under pressure, you know.”  Pharma’s optics flashed ominously at that, but First Aid pressed on.  “I’m feeling it; Ambulon is feeling it; the patients are worn down and terrified.  It will be  _good_ for us to feel like we have something to celebrate for once.  I thought that we could share out a little of the high grade, sing the songs, set up the –”

“We do  _not_ have anything to celebrate,” Pharma snapped.  “Neoformia died out for good when the last of the refugees left Cybertron, and it’s not as though anyone had really celebrated it for millennia before that.  A tiny interruption to the holiday season; maybe you’ve heard of it?  I believe they call it  _the war._ ”  He leaned down until his gaze was level with First Aid’s.  “Now get.  Rid.  Of that.  If I see it up there again, there will be severe consequences.”

“But it’s only the one crystal –” First Aid began.  Too late; Pharma had already turned on his heel and stalked off.  Grinding his denta, First Aid got a stepladder and reached up to detach the offending decoration from the ceiling.

The little crystal flower fit neatly into his palm, the wire he’d used to suspend it trailing down between his fingers.  The flower was crudely carved, the rock split into chunky, asymmetrical petals; not as delicate as the decorations back home, and certainly nothing like the extravagant ones Pharma would have been used to in Iacon before the war.  Still, the stark overhead lights sparkled prettily in the depths of the stone when he turned it.

What in the Pit was Pharma’s problem with the idea?  First Aid knew that despite what he’d said, Pharma was more desperate for a break than any of them.  And not wanting to participate would have been one thing, but banning Aid and the others from doing so – that was going too far.

Aid twirled the flower, watching the lights dance.

_If I see it up there again, there will be severe consequences._

An idea began to blossom in First Aid’s mind, as his optics narrowed in a smirk.

_If I see it up **there**  again…_

Never let it be said that First Aid didn’t know how to work a loophole.

***

Pharma stormed into his office, tossing his datapad on the desk.  Damn First Aid to the Pit.  He’d clearly already infected half the clinic; three patients had wished Pharma a joyous Neoformia as he’d passed, and he’d caught a glimpse of Ambulon ducking hurriedly around a corner.  Pharma hadn’t quite been able to tell, but it had definitely looked like the ex-Decepticon was sporting a different paintjob from his normal, flaking white and red.

Pharma should have made a general announcement putting a stop to this nonsense – but no, that would only serve to draw more attention to the date.  He ran a hand wearily over his face.

 _Neoformia._ The Day of Transformation, once sacred to Adaptus.  Pharma hadn’t thought of the holiday in vorns, and would have been quite happy for things to remain that way.  It was difficult enough to deal with this place, all mournful grey and freezing, sterile white, without remembering the explosion of colour that had been Iacon before the war.

And no time of the vorn had been more colourful than Neoformia.  Mecha had honoured the god of transformation by transforming their streets and homes, even themselves.  The hospital where Pharma had worked would always be decked out in lavish starbursts and flowers in all shades of metal for the season, and the entire city would be painted in bright shades and hung with a flickering, shifting array of lights.  From the air, it had been jaw-dropping – not least because of the people.  Everyone would be wearing brand-new paintjobs, the more radically different from their usual colours, the better.  The wealthiest mecha in Iacon would even make temporary alterations to their frames to show off for Neoformia.  And everywhere, the streets and corridors and doorways would bear crystal flowers.

The ritual of the flowers was simple.  End up with another mech underneath one, and you were supposed to exchange a small amount of charge.  The spark of change, it was called.  The exchange was brief, but tantalising if you happened to get caught with the right person.  All it took was a light touch to complete the circuit – a brush of the hands, an embrace, a kiss…

Some of the memories were faded and blurred, now, but some stood out like beacons.  There was that one patient, the massive tankformer Pharma would sometimes play cards with after his shift, who had leaned in almost sweetly when she’d spotted the flower above them, and had gusted out a warm vent over the sensitive cables of Pharma’s throat, teasing the charge higher before nuzzling against Pharma’s neck to close the circuit.  Pharma could still feel the snap of the sparks jumping between them.  There was the suave noble at one of the hospital’s holiday fundraisers, who’d completed the loop with a kiss to Pharma’s hand, before winking at him and swanning off.  And there was the vorn when Pharma – still a medical student, so terribly young – had lain in wait underneath a crystal flower for his favourite teacher, and had given no more warning than a cheeky grin and a gesture at the flower overhead before pouncing on him, sliding his glossa eagerly into the mech’s startled mouth.

Pharma smiled a little tightly at the memory.  Ratchet hadn’t known what had hit him.

He flopped down on the desk chair.  The last thing he wanted was a reminder of exactly how far those days were behind him, here in this facility at the edge of nowhere, with no one for company except the wounded Autobots he was patching up to send back out to the front lines, a Decepticon traitor, and a nurse who was –

Pharma’s thoughts came to a screeching halt as he went to put his feet up on the desk, and his toe clinked against an object that hadn’t been there that morning.  Moving his foot carefully aside, he stared.

The flower.  The fragging crystal flower was sitting in the middle of his  _desk._

Pharma gripped the arms of his chair and glared into the depths of the little carved stone.

Oh, now it was on.

***

“You’re sure?”  Ambulon twisted awkwardly yet again, trying to get a full view of his new paintwork.

“Yeah, stop hiding already!  You look great!” First Aid chirped.  It was true:  just having a fresh coat of paint did wonders for Ambulon.  He’d refused to do anything adventurous with the colours, sticking to the primary red and white of an Autobot medic and insisting that if Pharma caught him in a colour that looked even vaguely Decepticon-y, the surgeon would probably peel the paint off Ambulon with his own hands.  Aid had been able to spruce him up, though, by switching the red and white on Ambulon’s frame, so that the rich red accented the slender lines of his waist and legs, and by adding a few more orange highlights around the face and hips.  The result was striking, if First Aid did say so himself.  Nevertheless, Ambulon was skittish about being seen, even by the patients, and he’d been avoiding Pharma all day – all the more so once First Aid had told him about Pharma’s reaction to the Neoformia decorations.  Even now, sitting in the break room, Ambulon kept glancing at the door, as if expecting their boss to come striding through and start tearing strips off him at any second.  Possibly literally.

First Aid shook his helm and reached for his energon cube, retracting his mask to drink.  As he tilted the cube, something hard slid forward and clanged against his upper lip.

Aid sputtered and jerked the cube away, spilling half the contents over his lap.  “Oww!  What the –”

There, like a miniature iceberg emerging from a purple sea, was the crystal flower he’d left in Pharma’s office.

“The frag does that mean?” Ambulon asked.

First Aid lifted the crystal to optic level.  “It means war.”

***

The flower spent the rest of the day stealthily infiltrating every corner of the facility.

It showed up in a bottle of pills Pharma opened to give to a patient.  Then it made its way into First Aid’s quarters, behind the datapad Pharma had sweetly asked Aid to lend him.  Pharma nearly tripped over it in a storage closet next.  But the master stroke came when, at the end of a very long day, First Aid stepped into the washracks and turned on the water… only for the pipes to shudder and clunk while nothing came out.  A close inspection found the crystal jammed into the showerhead.

First Aid’s cursing could be heard down the hall.

Pharma moved cautiously as he returned to his quarters that night.  He was relatively certain that First Aid had accepted defeat, but his nurse was sometimes unpredictable.  The peace and quiet that had followed the shower incident could have marked the end of the struggle, or they could have indicated that First Aid was waiting around a corner somewhere to fire the crystal at Pharma’s face out of a bazooka.

The image made him snicker.  Pharma had to admit, attempting to one-up First Aid all day had made the Neoformia nonsense a little more bearable.  He’d even managed to avoid snarling at Ambulon over his new paintjob, and he’d turned a blind optic to his subordinates’ sneaking odds and ends of paint to the patients so that they could decorate one another.  The other trappings of the holiday were a lot more bearable as long as there were no crystal flowers dangling from the ceiling, taunting him with what he didn’t – or couldn’t – have.

That was when Pharma, stepping into his darkened quarters, caught a dim flicker from the top of the doorframe.

He didn’t turn on the lights, not yet.  Instead, he reached up and felt around, already knowing what he’d find:  the glassy surface of the crystal, the jagged cut of the petals.

“I thought we should put it to its intended use for once,” murmured a voice from the darkness.

Pharma narrowed his optics, just able to make out the mech’s silhouette.  “If this is your idea of increasing the stakes…”

“This is my idea of ending the game.”  The voice was closer now, and Pharma felt something reach towards him… no, past him, to hit the light switch.

For a second, Pharma was lost for words.

First Aid’s entire colour scheme was different.  He’d painted over his innocent white plating with a deep, sophisticated blue, which made the dark red of his helm and torso gleam like fire.  Subtle touches of gold here and there drew the eye from shoulder to abdomen, to hip, to panel.  Pharma rocked back on his heels to study him.  First Aid’s mask was retracted, as well, the mouth beneath it pretty and solemn.

“Well?” Aid whispered.

Pharma tore his gaze away from those lips, and folded his arms tightly over his chest.  “So.  Ulterior motives all this time, nurse?”

“Not at first, no.”  There was a quiet sincerity to the words.  “But I was serious when I said that we all needed something to celebrate.  I just realised that some of us need this part of Neoformia more than we need the rest.”

“What makes you think I  _need_ this?”   _Apart from the fact that I haven’t kicked you out of my room yet._ Pharma clenched his denta, hating his own transparency.  _And the way my fans have switched on._

But First Aid didn’t even blink at the whirr of Pharma’s systems trying to cool his overheated plating.  Instead, he smiled.  Dazzlingly.  “What makes you think I was only talking about you?”

With that, he reached out, and Pharma didn’t so much embrace him as let himself sag – strutlessly, gratefully – into Aid’s arms.  Those capable hands were moving over Pharma’s plating in long, relishing strokes.  Pharma could feel the charge building deep in his wiring, and he pressed against First Aid; but Aid pulled back slightly, so that the only connections between their bodies were his fingertips.  Pharma gave a staticky moan as the charge increased, welling up in his circuitry with nowhere to go.

“First Ai-id…”  It was meant to be stern, but Aid’s fingers slipping into one of his shoulder vents made Pharma’s voice break partway through.  He threw his helm back as electrical current crawled agonisingly up his plating.  The crystal flower was slowly rotating on its wire above him, flashing as it turned.

 _Beautiful,_ Pharma thought.

First Aid reached to tilt his helm back down, and then that distractingly pretty mouth was kissing Pharma soundly, closing the circuit.  The electricity snapped between them hard enough to hurt.  Pharma gasped, his lips stinging from the contact – and then he dove back in, clutching First Aid hard against him.  Pharma’s glossa ran teasingly over Aid’s lip, making him groan.

Pharma slid his hands down to settle on First Aid’s hips.  “So, tell me, nurse.  Are you content with having proven your point?  Or did you have something a little bit…”  His voice dropped into a low rasp against Aid’s audial.  “…  _more_ in mind?”

“Nnnnggghh.”  It took Aid a moment to recover enough to focus.  When he did, he grinned a little breathlessly.  “You know me, doctor.”  One of his hands strayed over to wrap around Pharma’s wing.  “I’ve always got more in mind.”

Which was when Pharma lifted him up – as a bonus, allowing First Aid’s panel to rub enticingly against his cockpit – and tossed him onto the berth.

First Aid sat up, reaching for him in a way that was almost begging, and Pharma tumbled down on top of him.  Both of them were burning up, fans screaming as they rocked desperately against each other.  Pharma straightened just enough to push Aid’s hips into the mattress, and bent down to trace the new gold highlights with his mouth, lashing his glossa over the seams of Aid’s panel.

Aid’s vents hiccupped, and he grabbed for Pharma’s chevron to hold him in place, making Pharma growl.  That grip  _stung,_ but it also shot a bolt of electricity straight down his back strut, so hard that he felt his panel click open.  Aid’s followed, his cord already fully pressurised and dripping.

Pressing First Aid down harder, Pharma ground their spikes together.  First Aid gave a long moan.  “Yes –  _Pharma_ –”

“Like that, do you?” Pharma panted.

“More, again, do it aga – ah – ah!”  First Aid’s hips were arching up, and Pharma thrust to meet them.  Bracing himself with one hand, he wrapped the other around both their spikes and began to stroke roughly; First Aid’s hand joined in, their fingers slipping over each other.  It wasn’t long before they found a rhythm, working in concert as naturally as if they were performing surgery together, Aid’s nimble fingers finding and working into the gaps Pharma’s exquisitely skilled hands left behind.

Aid’s cord twitched in Pharma’s grip, sliding hotly against his own, and Aid cried out.  Pharma felt transfluid splatter over his fingers, the motions of their hands slicking it over his own spike.  The thought, as much as the sensation, drove him on, and he slammed his hips down savagely.  First Aid’s free hand was gloriously warm over his back, his wings, his vents; it came up to cup his face as he lost himself completely, overloading so hard that the world went staticky at the edges.

Pharma came back to himself draped over First Aid, his ventilations sobbing as he fought for air.  Aid was cradling his wings, whispering, “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”


End file.
